Kick-Out!! Network

Saturday, August 1, 2009

Smackdown Thoughts - July 31, 2009

Friday Night Smackdown begins with... A HARDY PARTY! The crowd explodes for the new World Heavyweight Champion, but I'm a bit bummed out they didn't give him fireworks and confetti like when he won the WWE Title last year. I guess the recession is even hitting the party favor industry, or WWE used up the last of their company party budget on Triple H's birthday celebration (there was a lot of cake).Jeff Hardy is obviously excited for his win, thanks his fans and reminds us that it's good to be different, we're all snowflakes! Oh and who knew Jeff Hardy and Cryme Tyme we're such good buddies? Although it did give us the visual of the crazy Jeff Dance (you know the one) mixed with the CT high-five, so I'm all for this. Jeff Hardy & Cryme Tyme vs. CM Punk & JeriShow would be a great main event on a Smackdown before SummerSlam, just a friendly suggestion.

Cryme Tyme vs. The Hart Dynasty with a shot at the tag belts at SummerSlam hanging in the balance. Of all the matches these guys have had over the last few weeks, I think I enjoyed this one the most, mainly because it had a purpose. Definitely a nice change of pace to have Shad work the majority of the match so JTG could finally get a hot tag for the first time ever. JTG gets the pin with the Shout-Out and The Blingling Bros. are heading to SummerSlam! The celebration's cut short by Chris Jericho & Big Show, who are sporting fancy suits and a badass mash-up entrance theme. Great mic work here from all four guys and I'm already excited for their upcoming match.

Melina & Eve vs. Michelle McCool & Layla was the standard Smackdown Divas tag match, but at least the ending was cool. Melina countered the Faithbreaker into the Code Red... speaking of the Code Red, does Melina have a name for that finisher? Wikipedia has it listed as the "Last Call," but I don't think I can remember it being referred to that on commentary. Any help?

CM Punk unsurprisingly wants the winner of Jeff Hardy vs. John Morrison later tonight. Punk shook Hardy's hand after Night of Champions went off the air, but ran down Hardy's lifestyle again in this interview? Hmm...

Rey Mysterio & Finlay vs. Dolph Ziggler & Mike Knox was a lot of fun. Also a very special match because it's the first time I've ever been impressed by something Mike Knox did, and of course I'm talking about the crossbody to end crossbodies. I believe JR's word was "engulfed," and that certainly describes what Knox did to Mysterio in the early going of this match. Great ending as well, lots of drama, near falls, people getting tossed out of the ring, but Mysterio gets a quick pin on Ziggler, continuing his momentum from Sunday. I'm sure this isn't the end of the feud, maybe give these two a gimmick match of some kind at SummerSlam?

Okay, John Morrison has started to grow on me as a face, his ring work alone makes him a guy you should be cheering, but that backstage promo was nothing short of creepy. Something about the constant smiling, I half expected the Burger King to walk on camera just to give me nightmares for the next six years. Thanks John, your promo is the reason why I'm typing this review at 3am, I'm too scared to go to bed. Shaman of Sexy? More like Shaman of Sleeplessness!

As great as Smackdown is right now, you can tell the roster's suffering from injuries when The Great Khali vs. Charlie Haas makes it on television. They could've at least eased the pain and gave us something like R-Truth & Khali vs. Haas & Ortiz, at least R-Truth would've been out there! But oh well, no show is perfect. Speaking of imperfections, the baffling feud continues once Kane makes his way to ringside and assaults poor Ranjin Singh... you leave the Sultan of Sideburns alone! Please WWE, just give me a reasonfor this feud and I might turn my criticisms around.

I was going to introduce Kick-Out's new feature - Match of the Month - yesterday, but figured I needed to wait because Jeff Hardy vs. John Morrison was happening tonight. Good thing I waited, because I'm pretty sure this match was the best match of July; I certainly can't think of a better match to close out the month than this one. These two guys tore the house down, near fall after near fall, big moves like Morrison's Asai Moonsault and Hardy's Poetry in Motion off the stairs, plus Morrison kicked out of the Swanton! Plenty of drama, back and forth action, a red-hot crowd, and a clean finish... what more could you possibly ask for?

But the night didn't end there, oh no. CM Punk made his way to the ring to congratulate Jeff Hardy on his title defense but then he - THUNK! Microphone to the head! And a nasty mic shot too, Punk caught him the corner of the WWE flag and busted him wide open. That's right TV-PG whiners, there was blood on Smackdown! If there were any lingering doubts about whether or not CM Punk has officially turned heel, I think the assault at the end of this show cleared that all up. Looks like Punk's using his rematch clause next week too, but I expect shenanigans to take us into SummerSlam.

Oh Smackdown, your continued excellence makes me smile. Even without top guys like The Undertaker, Edge and Matt Hardy, this show continues to outperform every other wrestling program out there. Just imagine how good it's going to be when all those guys are healthy.

4 comments:

The best part of the beatdown to me was that there was the thirty second period where CM Punk went to the outside, debated leaving knowing that he shamed this man and kicked his ass, but then had to beat him up some more. It just was awesome to me.

You know when there is something in a promo that gets to the underlying truth about a feud or tells you how it is going to end? We had one of those moments last night.

When one member of Cryme Time (I think it was Shad) referred to Jericho and The Big Show as Han Solo and Chewbacca, well, it occurred to me that a) in terms of Star Wars, well, they were probably the coolest characters b) they did some awesome stuff c) they were on the side that actually won... well, it isn't that much of an insult.

I mean, if someone said you were cool, did amazing stuff and you were ultimately going to prevail, even though things might look really dicey for a time, well, you'd take that as a supreme compliment, wouldn't you?

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Wrestling is fun. At least it's supposed to be. Sometimes it's fun, sometimes it's dumb, sometimes it's both. Kick-Out!! was founded in the spring of 2009 to celebrate the most unique form of entertainment on the planet, and to have an intelligent discussion about it through social media and professionally-produced podcasts. Hope you enjoy.